In the seventh canto is described in magnificent language Calendau's exploit on the Mont Ventoux. This is a remarkable mountain, visible all over the southern portion of the Rhone valley, standing in solitary grandeur, like a great pyramid dominating the plain. Its summit is exceedingly difficult of access. It appears to be the first mountain that literature records as having been ascended for pleasure. This ascent is the subject of one of Petrarch's letters.
During nine days Calendau felled the larches that grew upon the flanks of the mighty mountain, and hurled the forest piecemeal into the torrent below. At the Rocher du Cire he is frightfully stung by myriads of bees, during his attempt to obtain as a trophy for his lady a quantity of honey from this well-nigh inaccessible place. The kind of criticism that is appropriate for realistic literature is here quite out of place. It must be said, however, that the episode is far from convincing. Calendau compares his sufferings to those of a soul in hell, condemned to the cauldron of oil. Yet he makes a safe escape, and we never hear of the physical consequences of his terrible punishment.
The canto, in its vivid language, its movement, its life, is one of the most astonishing that has come from the pen of its author. It offers beautiful examples of his inspiration in depicting the lovely aspects of nature. He finds words of liquid sweetness to describe the music of the morning breezes breathing through the mass of trees:—
"La Ventoureso matiniero,
En trespirant dins la sourniero
Dis aubre, fernissié coume un pur cantadis,
Ounte di colo e di vallado,
Tóuti li voues en assemblado,
Mandavon sa boufaroulado.
Li mèle tranquilas, li mèle mescladis," etc.
The morning breeze of the Mont Ventoux, breathing into the mass of trees, quivered like a pure symphony of song wherein all the voices of hill and dale sent their breathings.
In the last line the word tranquilas is meant to convey the idea "in tranquil grandeur."
This ruthless destruction of the forest brings down upon Calendau the anger of his lady; he has dishonored the noble mountain. "Sacrilegious generation, ye have the harvest of the plains, the chestnut and the olives of the hillsides, but the beetling brows of the mountains belong to God!" and the lady continues an eloquent defence of the trees, "the beloved sons, the inseparable nurslings, the joy, the colossal glory of the universal nurse!" and pictures the vengeance Nature wreaks when she is wronged. Calendau is humbled and departs.
His next exploit is the settling of the feud between two orders of Masons. He displays marvellous bravery in facing the fighting crowds, and they choose him to be umpire. He delivers a noble speech in favor of peace, full of allusions to the architectural glories of Provence, that grew up when "faith and union lent their torch." He tells the story of the building of the bridge of Avignon. "Noah himself with his ark could have passed beneath each of its arches." He touches their emotions with his appeal for peace, and they depart reconciled.
And now Esterello begins to love him. She bids him strive for the noblest things, to love country and humanity, to become a knight, an apostle; and after Calendau has performed the feat of capturing the famous brigand Marco-Mau, after he has been crowned in the feasts at Aix, and resisted victorious the wiles of the women that surround the Count Sévéran, and saved his lady in the fearful combat on the fire-surrounded rock, he wins her.